


Tennessee

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: Pick Me Up [27]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2016-2017 NHL Season, M/M, Nashville Predators, Pick-Up Lines, the rebound is a myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 21:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14881361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: "Stamkos re-signs three minutes later. Roman misses it, drowning himself in the shower so he can pretend to himself he’s not crying."





	Tennessee

It’s closing in on 22:00, and Roman really should get to bed if he wants to adjust to his home clock at all this summer, but Shea hasn’t called him yet today, and Shea always calls; he hasn’t missed a day yet this summer, and he’s not the type to, either. So Roman waits, and waits, until his phone rings. He picks it up too quickly, glad nobody’s around to see and chirp him for it, but he can’t help himself. Fondness seeps into his voice, more fondness than he ever thought he could feel for anyone. “Hallo, Shea, mein-”

“Oh god,” says Shea, from half a world away, and Roman doesn’t know it yet, but the slight tremor in Shea’s voice when he says it is the only emotion he’s going to display during their conversation.

“Shea, what’s-?”

“I can’t do this anymore,” he says, and Roman doesn’t- but he can’t- but they- “The news is breaking soon,” Shea continues, and Roman only realises he’s missed something when Shea says, “I thought I at least owed you this much. I didn’t want you to have to find out some other way.”

There’s silence, then, only the sound of their breathing on the line. Shea seems to be waiting for Roman to say something, anything, but he has no words. He can’t even move, really, just sits there in disbelief.

“Roman, I’m sorry,” Shea says, and, after a few more moments’ silence, hangs up.

And Roman looks to the brand new ring in its box on his dresser, its sizing his best guess for the man who’s just dumped him over the phone, who couldn’t even be bothered to do it in person, and doesn’t cry.

He’s angry enough, though, to look up the news Shea mentioned, or maybe just desperate to talk him out of it, but all he gets is Hall for Larsson, and if Shea thinks he’s going to be traded, just like _that_ , he’s an idiot. Except then Roman refreshes again, and maybe the whole world is stupid, because Shea’s been traded for P.K. Subban, and nothing makes sense anymore. It crosses his mind that here, at least, is an excuse for the phone breakup; they won’t see each other at training camp, and Shea might not be the asshole he’d seemed to be in that moment after all. The man Roman is losing, has lost, is exactly the man he’d thought, and that…

Stamkos re-signs three minutes later. Roman misses it, drowning himself in the shower so he can pretend to himself he’s not crying. He thinks, angrily, that there’s no reason long distance shouldn’t be able to work - what else have they been doing all summer? - but he knows, deep down, that there’s a difference between the temporary separation they thought they were having and this. He also knows that relationships are only relationships when both people want to be in them, that no amount of convincing could make Shea stay with him.

So this is it, he thinks, hot tears mingling with the hot water running down his face. And he wonders, just for a moment, if maybe he was the only one who was actually invested.

\--

PK walks into the room like a wave of fucking sunshine, brighter than their jerseys. Roman wants to hate him for replacing Shea, for breaking up his relationship, his life, but he can’t. For one thing, it was Poile who replaced Shea, and Shea who broke up with him. For another, PK is funny as hell and incredibly upbeat all the time, and Roman’s seen the interviews, knows how deeply PK loved Montreal, knows the depth of the hurt he must be masking with the constant good cheer.

It’s almost like he went through his own breakup, Roman thinks, and then wonders, idly, if there was a real breakup, too, or if maybe there’s a relationship still going on, or if there never was. But it’s not really any of his business, unless PK decides he wants to talk about it, which seems unlikely given that he has so many other people to talk to instead.

Actually, it turns out that he really _isn’t_ replacing Shea, because he and Roman are a hot mess on the ice together. Roman is so used to having steady Shea next to him, hanging back to defend, that he keeps pinching at inopportune times, and PK is so used to having to do everything himself that he keeps pinching at inopportune times, and it all keeps ending in odd-man rushes the other way and Joey giving them his best “please never make me defend one of those again” puppy-dog faces every single time. He’s much better off with Ells, maybe even better than he was with Shea, because Ells is actually having fun when they play instead of treating it almost exclusively like a job, and Roman is actually… happy?

It still aches when he turns to speak to someone who isn’t there, when he sees the name above the wrong number on Webby’s back, when he’s alone in his own bed after losses with no-one there to comfort him, but he’s mostly not partucularly miserable at all. Maybe it’s just the summer giving him distance, maybe it’s ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ maybe he’s just better at letting go of the things he can’t change than he thought.

Maybe it’s PK, and the way the team is now, more relaxed, more fun.

Whatever it is, Roman is okay, and that’s actually pretty nice. Fish doesn’t ask him about it either, and that’s also pretty nice, because as okay as he is, Roman’s not sure he can actually talk about it yet. He’s glad, now, that most of the rest of the team didn’t know, because their sympathy, kindly meant as it would undoubtedly be, would probably just grate on him. So he’s glad he’s okay, and his heart is healing, and everything’s going to be fine after all.

\--

PK fucking glows after wins, and right now Roman honestly can’t tell if he’s been drinking or not, because he’s steady on his feet but he’s literally showering everyone in compliments, one by one. He spends a lot of time on Pekks, in particular, to the point where Roman assumes he’s been forgotten. And that shouldn’t really bother him, except that, for some reason, it does. 

But PK moves on at last, after receiving the kind of huge, back-slapping hug that only Pekks can give, and, with a smile, heads straight for Roman. “Hey, Jos,” he says, mischief written all over his face, a gleam in his eye. Roman’s not awkward about compliments these days, especially not when he’s prepared for them, but he never imagined what’s about to come out of PK’s mouth and strike him speechless: “Are you from Tennessee?” A wink. “‘Cause you’re the only ten I see.” And Roman just stands there, confusion streaming wordlessly through his mind.

He must be staring right now, jaw slack, eyes glazed, but he feels like it might be rude to ask the question he wants to ask.

“Dude, are you alright? Do you need some water or something?” asks PK.

Roman opens his mouth to answer, but all that comes out is, “Are you serious?” Which could have been worded better, but PK misunderstands him anyway.

“About getting you water? Why would I offer if-?”

“No, about-” Roman stops. His face and ears feel hot. It’s been a long time since he blushed like this; he can feel it creeping across his scalp.

PK doesn’t seem to notice, or at least he doesn’t mention it, but his smile fades, and he regards Roman the same way he eyes opposing forwards. “Yes,” he says, steadily. “Is that a problem?”

“Not at all,” says Roman. He takes a step forward, somehow. It feels like his legs are in the aftermath of the worst bag skates of his life, but he keeps them from shaking.

“Good,” PK says, and there’s a spark as his smile returns and he takes a step towards Roman, tipping his head to the side, regarding him like some timid animal who might run away.

“Did you mean right now, or in a more general sense?” Roman asks, feeling like he actually might run, come to that, or like he’s on the edge of a cliff, unsure about the water below.

“Did you want me to mean right now?” PK asks, sounding like he actually wants to know.

Roman hesitates. “Well, yes, I think so.”

“But?”

“What? Oh. But I’m on the rebound, I think.”

“I see,” says PK, like he really does. “Well, I’ll be around, if you want, when you’ve had time to think about it, just putting the idea out there-” 

He turns to leave, but Roman catches his arm. “Wait,” he says, and for some reason, PK does.

“Yeah, Jos?” 

“Yes,” he says, and nods decisively, too, like one or the other wouldn’t be enough.

And PK flashes him an even bigger smile, and waggles his eyebrows like that’s a thing people actually do, and Roman thinks this was always his only right choice.

\--

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Joey asks two weeks later, and Roman’s had just about enough, with the worried looks from Fish, the bitten tongues from Eks and Ells, the frightened-rabbit demeanours of Fifi and Arvy.

“I don’t know,” he snaps, “but I know that I want to, and that there is only one other person whose business it is, and you are not him.” Pekks lets out a low whistle and starts to clap, and Roman is prepared, at that moment, to go out there and get him a shutout by sheer force of will. “Thanks,” he says to Pekks, and “Sorry,” to Joey, who still looks a little shell-shocked. Then PK comes flying in, nearly tackling him, and Roman finds there’s no need to say anything else, really.

PK’s breath seeps through the shoulder of his Underarmour, warm and damp. His own breath billows back to him off PK’s neck, the humidity of it sticking his cheek to PK’s bare shoulder. “What was that for?” he finally asks, when he’s peeled himself off.

“Oh, you know, good luck hug?” PK says, something soft in his voice, and maybe Roman does know what he’s doing, because he leans in and kisses him.

Someone wolf-whistles, and for a second Roman wonders how PK can be doing that with his mouth otherwise occupied, until he realises it’s Pekks again, Juice clapping and half-cheering next to him, and that plus PK’s arms tightening around him is all the encouragement Roman needs to keep going.

Someone clears his throat, somewhere near the door. “Am I interrupting something?” Lavi asks, in his hockey voice, the one balanced precariously between fury and delight, and Roman doesn’t want him to land on the furious side so, reluctantly, he stops kissing PK. 

Lavi rolls his eyes at them, but Roman thinks he’s trying not to smile.

\--

They win the game, and for once PK is the one to coax Roman into just going home, rather than the other way around. He ends up laughing more in one night than he can ever remember laughing before.

It’s closing in on 02:00, and Roman is listening to the quiet breathing of his boyfriend, bed no longer lonely. He looks towards his dresser, to where a box is hidden in a pair of socks in the back of the drawer under cover of the dark and, thinking, smiles. Not now, he thinks. Not yet, he thinks. He’ll probably have to get it re-sized, he thinks. 

But, for now, he’s warm and happy with a boyfriend he loves more than he’d thought possible, and Roman turns away from the past, and looks toward the future.

(The future is kind of a fucking octopus. But that’s just one thing of many that Roman loves about him.)

**Author's Note:**

> \- I still get a kick out of the fact that MTL and NSH are next to each other alphabetically.  
> \- Fun fact: Yannick Weber wears the number 6 for the Swiss National Team and used to wear 68 in MTL and 6 in VAN so I'm guessing the NSH front office was like, "Hey, can you not pick 6? It's just, like, complicated."  
> \- Recovery from past relationships isn't always linear. Relationships aren't always as serious as we think they are. Sometimes we end up expecting different things from similar types of relationships. Some people are hopeless mushy romantics who are at least partly in love with the idea of love. I wanted to throw all of these at this? It may have been slightly too ambitious for 2K.  
> \- The team knew about PK but not Shea because PDA, probably.


End file.
